Bachelor Program at the VorarlbergUniversity of Applied Sciences According to the Bologna Declaration
Author:
Johannes Steinschaden, Fachhochschule Vorarlberg, Achstraße 1, 6850 Dornbirn,
AbstractIn 1994 the first degree programs at Austrian Universities of Applied Sciences started. At the moment more than 120 degree programs are established. Since 2003 the Universities of Applied Sciences have also been able to establish degree programs regarding to the so called Bologna Declaration. The future European Area of Higher Education will be based on a system of two main cycles of studies. Undergraduate und graduate. The existing degree programs at the VorarlbergUniversity of Applied Sciences belong to the old system leading to the so called Dipl.-Ing. (FH) which reflects an academic level comparable to the Master degree. Now we are developing a new undergraduate program leading to a Bachelor degree in Mechatronics. Our experience so far has led us to believe that a significant reduction of lecturing in favour of individual work of students helps to make students feel more independent and responsible for their progress. In addition we co-operate with industrial companies and introduce real industry projects from the beginning, with the aim to make students interested in their own and their colleagues’ work.
Index Terms Bachelor,Bologna, Mechatronics
1Austrian University Laws
According to the so called Bologna process which started in 1999, based on the declaration at the Sorbonne one year before, the Austrian government changed the laws for the higher education system. Since 2000 traditional universities and since 2003 so called Fachhochschulen (universities of applied sciences) are allowed to establish Bachelor’s and Master’s degree programs. Bachelor’s degree programs must last for three years (six semesters) and must have student workload of 180 ECTS credit points. Master’s degree programs require a Bachelor’s degree and last for one to two years (two to four semesters). Students must have a workload between 60 and 120 ECTS credit points.
2Degree ProgramsatVorarlberg University of Applied Sciences
Vorarlberg University of Applied Sciences has offered technical degree programs that last for four years (eight semesters) since 1994. We started with a program in production automation and changed it to technical production management over the years. Because of the needs of the companies in our region, mostly small and medium sized enterprises, we will concentrate on the integration of the traditional disciplines of mechanical and electronic engineering along with information and communication technology - Mechatronics.
3Decisions Made at the VorarlbergUniversity of Applied Sciences
At our current degree program, students have about 30 contact hours per week. The experiences of the last 10 years have led us to reduce the amount of contact hours to a maximum of 24 hours in the first year and 22 hours beyond the first year. Reducing the contact hours does not mean that students will have a reduced workload. Austrian law limits student workload to 1,500 hours a year. Because the ECTS defines that every full semester consists of 30 credit points, one credit point cannot require more than 25 hours workload.In this case, instruction will need to be changed extensively. We are very interested in having a mix of pedagogical concepts in our courses within the curriculum. We definitely want to increase the responsibility and autonomy of our students for their learning and success. In our present technical degree program, each semester curriculum consists of many courses, requiring students to pass more than ten courses per semester. In order to build stronger connections between the various courses, we have tried to build modules. Each module consists of one to four courses and can also qualify the students in different disciplines.
4Project Work
In the context of real industry-based projects we want to enable different skills. Of course problem solving skills will be the main focus in addition to project management and interpersonal skills within the framework of a technical project. The students will work in teams which will be coached by professors who focus on the technical disciplines as well as by professors who concentrate on project management, team building, conflict management and other interpersonal skills.
In this project, students with different levels of knowledge and experience will have to work together in teams. In each team there will be students from the first, second and third year. Most of the tasks will be at a level that is too advanced for first-year students, requiring the upper level students to take the lead and learn how to manage real project teams. Also we hope that the first-year students will be more interested in future course content in the curriculum because they will see the areas where they lack knowledge.
This project enables professors to show the importance of their course contents to the students. Without this type of project, we will have great problems to motivate the students to learn and we will need very good arguments for such learning objectives.
5student mobility
In our present degree program as well as in our future degree program, students can take one semester at another university during their fifth semester. We are very interested that the students get international experience during their studies at the University. For those students who are not able to or are not interested in studying abroad, all courses in the fifth semester will be given in English. So we hope to attract foreign students into our program through student exchanges.
8Conclusions
With the new undergraduate program Mechatronics we try to incorporate some new ideas into the curriculum and hope that more young people will join our technical program at Vorarlberg university of applied sciences.
Information for editors (not published):
File format:Microsoft Word 2000(for example: Microsoft Word 2000)
Authors statement for the List of authors:
Order / First Name(s) / Surname / Institution and Country / E-mail1 / Johannes / STEINSCHADEN / Fachhochschule Vorarlberg, Austria /
Template version: 2004-02-12
1